


A Fourfold Torment

by BerryLeefT_137



Category: American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:55:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28306395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BerryLeefT_137/pseuds/BerryLeefT_137
Summary: “Mercury that must die in the earth of saltpeter and Roman vitriol”.Alchemy was considered crucial to resisting the tribulation of the anticipated rise of the Antichrist, an integral weapon in the Church’s arsenal for surviving his assault. Alchemy’s holy grail—the Philosopher’s Stone—was revered as plusquampserfect elixir, a powerful purging fire drawing from exposed substance a quintessential, exalted base, free of impurities of toxicity, through a redemptive chemical mechanism. It was considered a trump card in the inevitable cosmic showdown and its recipe involved a crucial first step that necessitated action of masculine Sulphur to reshape and change feminine Mercury.Deemed a fool’s endeavor, the pursuit of the Stone had been all but abandoned in modern times, and humanity thus fell at the Antichrist’s ascent. But perhaps not all is lost. Perhaps the blasts of the apocalypse have finally unearthed its eternal secret. Perhaps its potential is hidden amongst the inhabitants of the Cooperative’s Outposts. Eager to secure the future in his Father’s image, the Antichrist will stop at nothing to corrupt the infamous alchemical power and claim it for himself.
Relationships: Michael Langdon/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	A Fourfold Torment

Outpost 3 was, in a word, farcical. Take, for instance, a class system designated by color or its complementary Victorian dress code, the adamant observance of timeliness in the end of times, the clandestine manner in which mundane tasks were executed, Ms. Venable’s personality. It was all decidedly ridiculous, though, I reasoned as I stood and brushed my hands down my grey skirts, the assignment of purple to first class residents did have its historical foundations. Whether or not Venable made the decision consciously, I had to give credit where credit was due. I stooped to collect the bucket and rag I’d been using to mop up the remnants of Gallant’s most recent tantrum, which had been spurred by Venable’s announcement that food rations would be reduced…again. Now that, I mused, was the most absurd aspect of Outpost 3: that a fortified bunker built by the elite 1% to outlast nuclear war and its resultant fallout winter was proving unsustainable after a little over a year. I smirked at the pale face murkily reflected in the bucket cradled in my arms, its sunken eyes framed within dark circles reminiscent of some ghastly Tim Burton character, as I considered the cosmic joke of it all. Abruptly extracted from my burgeoning life by the well-dressed dogs of some anonymous benefactor and deposited into servitude to preserve the hidden potential in my genetics, apparently. An exchange of living for surviving. Though, I mused as I took the cleaning supplies back to the kitchen, even survival may be off the table after the perimeter alert that had Venable ordering everyone into their rooms. I couldn’t recall her so on edge from any other perimeter alert, and she had recently mentioned that other Outposts had fallen to the irradiated elements. Perhaps the cannibals had at long last come upon Outpost 3. I poured the dirty water from the bucket down the sink and set it down to the side, wrung the cloth out and hung it across the faucet, washed my hands and sighed as I dried them on my skirts. “Well,” I murmured dryly to myself, “better simper off to my room before the cannibals get in.” I exited the kitchen into the dining room—servants’ corridors were surrendered to utility in the design of the Outpost—and deftly maneuvered through the spiraled maze of curved halls to my room. I’d nearly made it, was making the final turn into the hallway where the Greys’ quarters were housed, when I nearly ran smack into Venable. I stopped myself just short of doing so and quickly diverted my eyes downward, focusing on the ground between us to avoid her gaze.  
“What,” she asked slowly, “are you doing out of your room?’  
Keeping my gaze trained downwards, I answered, “I stayed behind to tidy up the dining room.”  
“Oh?” She sounded vaguely surprised, as if she’d forgotten about breakfast’s dramatic conclusion, “and you decided that took precedence over my direct order?”  
I cocked my head to the side, frowning, “Well, someone had to. I mean, assuming the perimeter breech didn’t end us, I figured you’d be rather upset to find the dining room still in disarray later. And if it did,” I shrugged, “then we’d all be reduced to the same fate anyway.”  
“And that treacherous responsibility fell to you, specifically, because?”  
I looked up then, smirking when I finally met her gaze. “Well, I suppose I have the weakest survival instinct.”  
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she surveyed me, her mouth twisting with the effort of calculating thought. She was trying to decide if I was a threat to her orderly rule, whether or not she should neutralize me. But after a tense minute, her features finally relaxed into a cold smile. “Even so,” she said, voice saccharine, “My orders are law, and they demand obedience. So get to your room.”  
I mirrored her smile, “But of course, Miss Venable. If you’ll excuse me.” I skirted around her with an exaggerated curtsy and strode to my room at the end of the hall, not sparing her a backwards glance.  
I’d no sooner let out a breath as the door clicked behind me than my roommate came upon me with her usual brand of frenzied concern. “Oh my god, did you run into Venable? I heard her cane echoing down the hall. I told you that you shouldn’t disobey her command and stay behind, even if it did mean we’d all get punished afterwards. I mean, the punishment for leaving a mess has to be less severe than disregarding orders, especially since the blame would be among us all.”  
I gently placed my hand on each of her shoulders and squeezed. “Noemie, breathe.” I grinned at the way she snapped her mouth shut and took a deep, cleansing breath. In the nose for 4, out the mouth for 7, just how I’d taught her. “Yes, I spoke to Venable. No, she didn’t give any indication that I’ll be tortured or killed for my disobedience. Yes, I should have stayed behind. I’d do it again if it spared you from punishment.”  
Her face twisted into a disapproving frown and she stepped back so that my hands slipped from her shoulders. “Martyrdom doesn’t suit you, Ara,” she said accusingly. “If you keep giving Venable reasons to, she’ll eventually decide you aren’t worth your service and put a bullet in your head. And then what the hell will I do? I won’t survive without you.”  
I sighed and walked over to my bed, flopping down onto my back. “Don’t be so dramatic. I’m alive, aren’t I? And no worse for the wear.” I angled my head to catch her gaze again and said pointedly “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”  
She harrumphed and walked over to sit on her own bed across from me. “Just stop making a habit of it is all I’m saying. Please?”  
I tapped my finger to my chin as if in thought and responded, “Well I promised other people I’d be on my worst behavior, so…”  
She sighed and dropped her head forward, shaking it slowly to and fro as she watched her fingers play on her lap. “You’re an idiot,” she finally said quietly, though it didn’t carry the weight she’d intended coming through the smile I noticed she was struggling to suppress.  
I grinned back at her, triumphant. I frequently and unabashedly exploited her fondness for conversing in movie and TV quotes for the sake of keeping her spirits high amidst the usual gloom and doom. “Maybe so,” I allowed, “but I’m an idiot who can hold her own, so stop worrying so much.”  
She sighed and leaned back on her elbows, letting her head fall back. “Fiiiine,” she relented, then suddenly snapped her head up again. “Wait, did you see anything? Any ideas on what set off the alarms?”  
“Not a one,” I said, stretching my arms up to lace my fingers beneath my head and gaze at the ceiling. “It really had Venable spooked, though. She seemed preoccupied when I spoke with her just now, like she almost didn’t recall Gallant’s little breakfast and a show until I mentioned it.”  
“Do you think it’s cannibals?”  
“Maybe,” I replied, “If not, then it’s only a matter of time if what Venable’s reported on the other Outposts is true.”  
Silence set in as we both contemplated the prospect of losing our tentative borders to the corporeal specters of our hubris, ever lurking in the periphery, until Noemie finally whispered, “Are you still considering it, then?”  
I let the question hang in the air for a beat before ceding, “Yeah.” My eyes remained locked on the ceiling.  
We fell back into a prevailing silence, neither of us willing to elaborate, to give it substance, to make it real. Under its weighty blanket, my mind reverted to its habitual review of the intel I’d painstakingly collected: food and water filters were stored in the east wing, near the kitchen; a stash of weapons was hidden in an alcove off the decontamination chamber, but the majority were in storage a level down from the main floor; most sizes were represented in the assemblage of oddly fashioned hazmat suits hung in the clean antechamber; bags were easy to scrounge up, but the challenge lay in securing their contents from radiation exposure once outside. I had become wholly preoccupied with devising a solution when a chorus of faint hisses wound into my thoughts and gently tugged me back to the surface. Suddenly alert and firmly planted in the present, I frowned and strained to listen. Perhaps it was transient tinnitus, I considered, a hallucinatory sound concocted by the brain to overlay the deafening silence.  
“Do…do you hear that?” Noemie breathed.  
I was about to glance over at her to concur but froze when I spotted faint cracks in the ceiling, directly where I’d been staring, interlaced in a delicate fan of webbing. I hadn’t noticed them before, and I was sure they were new, even since I’d lain on my bed and first looked up a few minutes ago. Since I slipped into thought and zoned out to avoid the turn in conversation. “Do you see…?” A loud rumbling cut me off before I could finish asking, and the compromised area abruptly gave way, showering me with rubble and black, writhing darkness. But darkness wasn’t this palpable, was it?  
I realized as Noemie let loose a blood curdling scream that the darkness was, in actuality, three glistening black snakes slithering about my legs and torso. Sheer panic jolted me from the bed, but the snakes inconceivably held fast, suspending themselves in limbo with a squeezing embrace for a fraction of a second before finally falling to the ground. By some miracle, I hadn’t been bitten, and to keep the status quo I hastily tiptoed over and leapt to join Noemie on her bed. But, rather than retreating to the dark, the snakes followed suit and slithered along the edges of the bed, making for the nearest leg. “What the fuck?” I yelled, looking about wildly for anything to hamper their progress. My eyes landed on her pillow and I pointed, “Quick, hand me that!” Once she’d complied, sobbing as she grasped its corner and flung it at me, I swiftly took up post at the right bottom corner of her bed where the snakes had congregated, writhing over one another as they grappled to ascend the leg. I swiped down with the pillow, loosing the topmost snake’s grip and sending it sprawling onto the floor. I was winding up for a second swing when our door was flung open and the Fist rushed in, tense and clearly braced for a fight. Her eyes widened when they beheld the throng of snakes and she froze, seemingly stunned and uncharacteristically at a loss for action. Mead strode in behind her, barking “What the hell is going on in here?”  
“I thought everything outside was dead,” the Fist said faintly, moving her lantern over the snakes. It seemed that they’d relented their pursuit now that they had an audience.  
“God knows how deep they went after the blast,” replied Mead as she maneuvered around them and peered up at the gaping hole in the ceiling. “Maybe they burrowed through after accessing the sewage or the ventilation system.” She glanced back down at the snakes, still swarming the foot of the bed, and stooped down to lob one’s head off with an axe before holding its still writhing body up to the light. “Whew, looks like we got some fresh protein.”  
“Won’t they be contaminated?” Squeaked Noemie.  
“No, we’ll scan ‘em,” replied Mead absentmindedly as she turned the body this way and that, its scales glittering like diamonds in the lamplight and casting pseudo stars onto our bedroom walls. “I don’t see any mutations.” She beamed at it. “Boy this looks like good eatin’, huh? Whew!”  
“Right…” I said warily, watchfully tracking Mead’s movements as she dropped the corpse into the Fist’s waiting bucket and set about to hacking up the rest. It didn’t escape me that she’d responded to screaming with an axe and bucket handy, or that she appeared utterly delighted at the opportunity to wield her weapon on a living creature. I dropped the pillow onto the bed and jumped to the floor, safe now that Mead was neutralizing the threat, all the while monitoring her exuberant progress. Even the Fist appeared mildly uncomfortable with her superior’s odd behavior. After she’d beheaded the third and final snake, I cleared my throat, “Ahm, Ms. Mead?”  
“What?” She asked impatiently as she dropped its body into the bucket and signaled for the Fist to take it away.  
“What about the ceiling?” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder to draw her attention to the cavernous hole from which debris continued leaching intermittently. “I’m not one to complain, but it’s less than ideal sleeping under a construction hazard.”  
“Oh, right,” she said, visibly falling back into her strict authoritarian persona. “We can’t have anyone sharing beds for obvious reasons, so I’ll have someone bring a sleeping pad.”  
I scoffed and raised a hand to my chest in indignation, “I don’t appreciate the insinuation, Ms. Mead. To assume one’s sexual orientation is a serious offense nowadays.”  
She smirked at my display and replied dryly, “Not since nowadays was blasted to high heaven. You’ll sleep on a pad until we can repair the damage, Aradya. End of discussion.”  
Though inwardly impressed that she’d bother to learn a Grey’s name, I rolled my eyes and raised my hand in mock salute, “Aye aye, captain.”  
She shook her head and muttered under her breath—something about a snarky bitch—as she turned on her heel and marched from the room.  
Later, just as we were about to head to the dining room to prepare for dinner, two guards arrived to deliver the promised sleeping pad and place a vacuum tight plastic seal around the hole to fortify against potential contamination, though, they reassured us, it was unlikely this far beneath the surface. Despite Noemie’s protests, I opted to stay behind and observe the process to its completion to confirm a job well done. After everything, I was not about to let myself and Noemie be eliminated by something as risibly insidious as radioactive contamination. By the time I arrived at the dining room, quite fashionably late for prep but, to my profound relief, before Venable, the table had been already been set so I joined my fellow Greys in the kitchen. Upon my entrance, Noemie glanced over her shoulder from where she stood ladling soup from a large pot and said “Hey! We all covered your prep responsibilities, as thanks for cleaning up earlier.” The other pair shot me quick smiles and murmured their collective assent as I took my place beside Noemie and handed her another bowl.  
“What’s on the menu?” I asked airily as she dipped the ladle back into the pot, eliciting a meaningful glance from the corner of her eye. I bit back a laugh, “No, don’t tell me…?”  
“Uh huh,” she responded, emptying the ladle into the next bowl.  
“Oh,” I laughed, grinning wickedly, “Coco’s gonna love this.”

***

“I have a rule against eating things with no legs or too many legs,” Coco whined as she appraised the dinner set before her with unconcealed disgust. I caught Noemie stifling a giggle from the corner of my eye, but, at my quirked brow and pursed lips, she quickly settled herself with a deep breath. Lined up along the back walls meal after meal, on display but meant to be neither seen nor heard, we Greys had become masters of nonverbal communication.  
“Oh right, but you’re fine eating something with two legs,” Andre bit back disdainfully, eyeing her across the table.  
“For the last time,” Gallant groaned exasperatedly, “we didn’t eat your boyfriend.”  
Mead huffed from her end of the table, effectively cutting off the hackneyed conversation before it could run its course yet again. “Eat it or don’t, no one’s gonna force it down you,” she chided.  
Always quick to interject and diffuse tension, Dinah quoted, “Adversity makes strange bedfellows, and worse dinner companions,” She paused, tearing her disapproving gaze from Andre and trailing it around the table. “It’s food, and we’re starving. We should be grateful for the fruits of the Earth.”  
Evie took her queue then and chimed in, obliging to impress an air of cultural sophistication upon her bunker mates, per usual. “Well, steamed snake soup is actually quite delicious. It was the centerpiece of the dinner that I attended at the royal court in Kuala Lampur with Gina Lollobrigida,” she purred, emphasizing the name drop. I rolled my eyes upward and prayed for the patience to endure another one of her reveries. I noticed Gallant do the same.  
But Emily’s gracious interruption spared us. “So,” she called to Venable from across the table, “who’s in your office?” At that, I snapped back to attention and hastened to fix it onto Venable, scrutinizing her face, posture, and movements for tells suggesting changes in our immediate situation that would alter my timeline.  
“I beg your pardon?” She asked, and though her expression was schooled into a cool mask of indifference, the minute twitch at the corner of her mouth did not escape me. The tic looked equal parts anger and anxiety.  
“The alarms went off,” Emily reasoned, “before someone came inside.”  
Mead and Venable exchanged a quick, subtle glance from their dignified positions at either end of the table. My gaze flitted between them, ascertaining meaning, and I suppressed a shiver at the deep cold that slithered down my spine with a dawning realization. It was short lived, easy to miss, but within that look dwelled something universal and utterly, hopelessly human. They were afraid.  
“Who else is here?” Thomas insisted.  
“All questions will be answered in due course,” she replied, clenching her jaw. “Eat,” she ordered, tapping her cane to the ground with resounding finality.  
Within the echoes of Venable’s cane emerged a familiar building hiss, reminiscent of that preceding the horror show in my room earlier today. It enveloped me as it grew, weaving into the edges of my very being, and for a moment I felt their slick coils knot in the pit of my stomach. I started and instinctively peered up at the ceiling, searching for webbed cracks, vulnerabilities in the structure, but my attention was promptly pulled back down by a chorus of trilling screams to find reanimated snakes slithering out of soup bowls. The Purples lurched back from the table, toppling their chairs in their haste to escape their dinners. The snakes poured forth from the table and fell in torrents, forming writhing knots of glittering scales upon the floor and then disentangling themselves from one another to orient towards the south wall, the one, I realized with horror, behind our backs. As the slithering mass advanced, to all appearances driven by a singular purpose, I pressed into the wall, frozen in terror, and watched the other Greys scatter about in my periphery. Inwardly, I realized that they were doing the logical thing, and lord knows I wanted to follow suit, but I was rooted to the spot, oddly paralyzed by fear like I’d never been before. Vaguely, as if far away or from deep underwater, I registered Noemie screaming my name. The snakes, meanwhile, had reached me and were grappling amongst themselves to coil around my ankles and calves. I looked down in abject horror, searching for my feet beneath the slithering sea, and all at once felt very faint. Their hissing crescendoed to a roar in my ears, and within it, a voice, clear and powerful, called to me from beneath the surface: _You can’t hide, parva regina_. A burning hand rested on each of my shoulders and tugged, gently at first and then more forcefully once I started struggling, easily loosing my footing and dragging me to a precipice where I glimpsed the waiting void. I adamantly resisted until a rumbling whisper ghosted over my shoulder, demanding, _Egredietur_ , and crumbing my resolve entirely. With a soft sigh, I yielded to palpably writhing darkness.

_A blaring horn pulled me from reverie and I all but flinched at the blinding light and lively bustle all around me. Swiftly catching my bearings, I looked either way and stepped into the street, leading the crowd of pedestrians across before veering off from the throng and ducking into Rad Coffee on the other side. I pulled off my Ray Bans and perched them on the crown of my head as I approached the counter, smiling at the barista. “Hey, Tom, how’s it going?” I asked.  
He returned my smile with his warmest, the one that crinkled the edges of his eyes. “Doing well, Ara. No class today?”  
I shook my head, “Nah, no lecture this morning. I’ve got a small group session this afternoon, but I figured I’d grab some coffee and clock some extra hours in the histology lab beforehand.”  
He shook his head good-naturedly and reached for the largest sized cup, “The usual?” He asked, hardly sparing a glance for my anticipated nod of approval before heading back to fill it with the local daily brew. He added a splash of soy milk and a sprinkle of cinnamon before returning to the counter, popping on a lid, and sliding it to me. I handed him a $5 before grabbing the cup and turning on my heel to leave.  
“Wait!” He called, “Your change!”  
I waved him off without breaking my stride as I exited the shop. “You know the drill, Tom. Keep the change!”  
I emerged onto the crowded sidewalk under clear blue skies and overbearing sunshine. Eager to escape the insidious assault of damnable heat and unbridled UV radiation characteristic of a typical LA summer day, I put my sunglasses back on and set off for the bus stop, deftly weaving in and out of the crowds in my haste to get to the lab as soon as possible. I breathed a sigh of relief when I caught sight of the empty stop just ahead and glanced down at my watch to confirm the time for just a moment when I collided with someone. My caffeine addict knee jerk reaction to hold the coffee out from the chaos completely spared it at the expense of my face, which smashed directly into a broad chest.  
“Thrry,” I mumbled against the soft fabric once the danger had passed and we’d stilled against one another. I felt the rumble of his deep chuckle and then the gentle grasp of his hands on my shoulders as he righted me. He stilled for a moment, long enough for me to heed their feverish warmth, discernible even in the oppressive ambient heat, before retreating, deliberately trailing his fingertips along my arms as they fell back to his sides. Perching my glasses atop my head, I looked up to thank him but the words immediately died on my tongue. He was, to put it plainly, utterly beautiful. A sharp, angular face framed by a halo of curled golden hair. Eyes reminiscent of pristine blue waters, serenely beckoning, presently glittering with amusement. Full lips curved into a knowing smile. And tall, looming over me with his broad shoulders and lithe frame, clothed in dark wash jeans and a plain black t-shirt. I was craning my neck to meet his gaze and realized my mouth had fallen open during my ogling. I abruptly snapped it shut and cleared my throat, angling my reddening face away to focus on an empty space behind his shoulder and awkwardly rubbing the back of my neck with my free hand. “Sorry,” I repeated.  
“Don’t be,” he replied silkily, luring my gaze upwards again to catch the easy smile I could hear in his voice. He nodded at the cup in my outstretched hand. “Your coffee okay?”  
“Oh,” I laughed and raised it up in a toast, “Yeah, my cat-like reflexes only apply to preserving my caffeine fix, I’m afraid.”  
“But of course, strategy necessitates that you defend your most precious resource,” he reasoned, eyes twinkling mirthfully.  
I winked and snapped my fingers, “Exactly.”  
“Well, in that case,” he held his hand out for my cup, “May I?”  
My eyes narrowed suspiciously and I withdrew from his outstretched hand, “Why?”  
He laughed heartily at my protective hesitation, a deep, reverberating sound framed in a beam that softened his features with delight. “Don’t worry,” he insisted once he’d regained his composure, “I don’t plan on sampling it.”  
I twisted my lips to the side, regarding him dubiously for a moment before finally relenting and handing it over. “If you do...” my warning trailed off into a pointed look.  
“I won’t,” he reassured me, smirking as he took the cup and extracted a pen from the front pocket of his jeans, bit off the cap, and proceeded to write something along its side. When he had finished, he handed the cup back with a wink before recapping the pen and twirling it fluidly about his fingers in perpetual infinity, waiting expectantly for my reaction.  
I scowled at his flaunting before proceeding to examine to the cup. Turning it around in my hands, I found that he’d jotted a name and number in messy scrawl. “Michael?”  
“Call me,” he requested, tapping the lid of the cup with the pen for emphasis, “and I’ll be happy to satisfy your future caffeine needs.”  
I looked up, eyebrows raised in bewilderment. “Are you asking me out for coffee?”  
He simpered, clearly pleased with my beguiled reaction, and shrugged before sidestepping me and continuing down the sidewalk, calling over his shoulder as he strode away, “You’d better hurry if you want to catch that bus!”  
“What…?” I started and whipped my head around at an unexpected piercing hydraulic hiss, surprised to see that the bus had already pulled up to the stop and was admitting passengers. “How did he…?” I wondered aloud, glancing back in his direction and realizing, to my dismay, that he’d somehow already disappeared into the crowd. I shrugged to myself, resolving to temporarily set aside the Michael enigma in favor of refocusing my thoughts onto histology, which was, admittedly, the more pressing matter if not the more intriguing. Taking care not to jostle my coffee, I jogged over and boarded the bus. But even while my mind was preoccupied with transitional epithelium and loops of Henle, I couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that something was off, foreboding in the vaguest sense. Perhaps it was the eerie residual hiss of the bus door shutting behind me, how it lingered and transformed into a recognizably resonant cadence:  
Parva dea luna, parva regina, parva Aradya, Aradya, Aradya… **Found you.**_


End file.
